The low pressure system dumping record-breaking rain across north Queensland might have missed Winton on its first pass, but it delivered on Sunday and Monday.

Landholders watching the excitement of those to the north, around Mount Isa and Cloncurry, and to the south at Longreach, didn’t have long to wait for their own dose of watery relief.

The heavens opened around 1pm on Sunday and only let up the next afternoon, for an official total of 146.4mm.

Shire mayor, Gavin Baskett, described it as a “good old-fashioned wet season like we used to get”, saying they couldn’t have asked for anything better.

He took part in a number of disaster management meetings on Monday but said they were only precautionary.

“All roads to Winton were closed today but we don’t have any food shortages – nobody’s panicking here,” he said.

Depending on the future movement of the low pressure system, he expected most roads to reopen within days, excepting the one to Boulia, which would bear the brunt of huge falls around Kynuna that flow into the Diamantina River.

One of those was at Nuken Station, where Christine Batt told the Facebook page, Who Got the Rain she couldn’t believe she was posting that the property had recorded 301mm in three days.

Further east, John Paine said everything had turned around for himself and his wife Katrina since the rain on Sunday and Monday.

They had recorded only 5mm at Daintree prior to that but had had 118mm by Monday evening, their biggest fall since February 2016.

John said while he would be interested to see what happened to the grass when the sun came out, he was confident his country would kick away.

The sale of half their breeding herd last Monday, to the Central Highlands, would mean the country would respond better, he said.

“We will have lost some fencing but we can fix that,” he said. “It’s getting the rain that’s the hard part.”